


Or Heart Obey

by SolainRhyo



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Clerith, Death, Definitely some Aeriseph though, Delving a bit into some theories, F/M, Fighting in the Drum, Hojo's plan goes awry, Kalm - Freeform, Mainly Clerith, Midgar, Romance, Sephiroth interferes, Sephiroth roaming the Drum, Sephiroth wants both Cloud and Aerith to live, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, aeriseph, chocobo ranch, spoilers galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:49:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23711782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolainRhyo/pseuds/SolainRhyo
Summary: Unsuccessful in his attempts to keep Cloud from Aerith, Sephiroth devises a new way to alter fate. He’ll need both of them alive and well in order to make it happen. Aerith must find her own way to defy her destiny and Sephiroth’s intentions while coming to terms with her powerful feelings for Cloud—and all the ways they could hurt him.(Clerith, hints of Aeriseph)
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth, Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 42
Kudos: 273





	1. Broken menagerie

**Author's Note:**

> **SPOILERS FOR THE REMAKE. Lots of them.**

It was silent in the Drum.

It hadn’t been mere minutes ago, when the entirety of the cavernous space had been rocked by tremors strong enough to knock both Aerith and Tifa off their feet, when pods ruptured by the quaking had expelled their pitiable, terrifying contents, when the two women had been confronted by monsters both vaguely leonine and reptilian. More noise had followed, the clamor of combat as they battled, warding off teeth and claws, exchanging terse directives in an effort to gain the upper hand. And then the final bit of commotion, another tremor that rattled the catwalk free of its fixtures and sent all combatants skidding toward the edge. Aerith had jammed her staff into the grating that hadn’t fallen, had flailed to reach Tifa as the other woman went tumbling past. Her fingers snagged a suspender and she grasped hard instinctively, crying out as it wrenched her arm. It was enough but it wasn’t enough; Tifa caught Aerith by the wrist, the fingers of her other hand clenching at the broken grating panel that now swung perpendicular. The monsters that had fallen circled far below, apparently uninjured, their growls audible even from this height as they waited for the inevitable.

Aerith, gripping her staff with one hand and Tifa with the other, experimentally attempted to pull herself up even though she knew she couldn’t do it. She tried anyway, giving up as her fingers around the staff grew sweaty and began to slip. She swallowed against the pain of being torn in two directions, against the sudden swell of hopelessness, and looked down the length of her body at Tifa.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“I know.” Tifa glanced down, measuring the distance. Aerith’s hold on her staff slipped, dropping her slightly. They both gasped.

“Shit,” Aerith breathed, a word she seldom used but had uttered with increasing frequency these days.

“You need to let go of me,” Tifa said. Her eyes were wide but focused and as they found Aerith’s own she mustered up a smile. “I’ll be okay. There are only two of them down there.”

“There will be others, though—”

“I know. But if you don’t let go we’ll both fall, and if one of us is hurt…”

“But what if _you_ get hurt?”

Tifa glanced down again, squaring her jaw. “I guess I won’t have to then, huh?”

Aerith couldn’t protest, though she wanted to. Tifa was right. Either one of them fell or they both did. The muscles in her arms and shoulders and back were screaming in protest from the strain of hanging suspended thus. “Okay,” she conceded reluctantly. “Okay. Be careful, please. Find the others. Be safe.”

“You too,” Tifa said, and flashed another smile, this one a little brighter, a little fiercer. “I’ll see you soon.”

They let go of each other at the same time, Tifa plummeting away as Aerith reached for the staff with her other hand. Below her came the sounds of combat, snarls and howls and Tifa’s determined battle cry, and Aerith began the arduous task of pulling herself upward. She struggled to find purchase, jamming her toes into the holes of the broken grating in order to boost herself up. It worked and as she heaved herself over the edge onto the still stable remainder of the catwalk the broken piece detached and spun away, landing with a tremendous clatter below. Breathing hard, Aerith lay where she was for a while before pushing up onto her hands and knees, turning, and peering over the edge. She couldn’t see Tifa, but she could see the sprawled bodies of the creatures and she allowed herself a fleeting smile. Tifa _would_ be fine. She got to her feet, leaning hard on her staff, and took a look around. There was only herself now, alone and admittedly frightened. This was how the hateful silence had come to be to be, oppressive and ominous, blanketing the whole of the Drum.

She took a moment to rest. She hurt in ways she’d never hurt before, from exertion, from wounds. There were other hurts, too, the deep emotional and psychological pinpricks that Hojo had inflicted so easily even though she’d known his intent all along. And there was of course the other pain, the one she tried not to dwell on because it was a very real threat to _everything,_ an emotion she’d not thought to find and expected even less to succumb to. It should have been an impossibility, given who and what she was. That it wasn’t was unfair in ways she had never thought possible, yet another inevitability thrust upon her to accept with grace. _But why?_ she wondered, seizing on the unfamiliar urge to be mutinous, an urge that had, like certain parts of her vocabulary, manifested only recently. Why should she accept it now, knowing what she knew, feeling what she felt? What possible difference could it make? All that was to happen was already set in stone. The Whispers had made sure of it, would continue to make sure of it. And arbiters of Fate as they were, they _had_ allowed her to encounter him. They had allowed much… too much, and she feared two would pay the price now instead of one.

 _I can’t._ The same words she’d said to Tifa earlier, an admission of yet another kind of helplessness. She turned away from the edge, her eyes sweeping over the Drum, silent and still. That her friends were trapped in the wards was certain, and she needed to gain entry to any of them somehow. The controls for the ward doors were on the upper level, and with a sigh Aerith began to move, crossing the catwalk toward the nearest set of stairs, determined to find her way through this labyrinth while no small part of her questioned if she could.

**.x.**

By the time she reached the upper level, the bridge leading to the central controls had retracted. Another of Hojo’s pranks, perhaps, or a malfunction in the system. It could be either, judging by the way that certain banks of lights had started to flicker off and on. The doors to all wards save the first were closed. She and Tifa had already traversed Ward One, but perhaps some of the doors within were unlocked now. It wasn’t as though she had any other course of action…

The quaking from earlier had rattled more than just a few lights loose, which she discovered shortly after entering the ward. More pods had been jarred from their moorings, breaking open and allowing their contents to escape. She encountered two after rounding a blind corner, four-legged things hunkered low to the ground, possessing a shock of red hair in an uneven mane, their heads a disturbing blend of human and draconian features. They circled around her with a predator’s slow and quiet tread, long tails flicking back and forth. A spiked ridge decorated their spines, rising and falling with each step they took. When they finally attacked, they did so in tandem. Aerith was not unprepared, though she was somewhat unskilled; it was one thing to fight off the smaller, less-dangerous monsters that roamed through portions of the slums. It was quite another to confront these creatures, created as they were for the sole purpose of meting out death. Her glinting barrier was swiftly enough erected, preventing claws and teeth from doing anything more than grazing her. It wouldn’t last forever, though, and while she could whittle them down with attacks from her staff she opted instead to utilize her materia, setting first one of them ablaze and then the other. She took advantage of their subsequent pained frenzy, hitting with heavy sweeps of her staff, twisting aside when jaws snapped at her in retaliation. She lacked the raw strength and skill that the others possessed, but her affinity for materia was greater than theirs—greater, in fact, than that of almost any other. She could manipulate the energy harnessed within the small glowing orbs with the same ease as which she drew breath, could amplify that power beyond what ordinarily it would be capable of. This was not something anyone knew, not even her Shinra captors. She had taken great pains to ensure she never used materia to her full potential in any place it could be witnessed.

She rested for a while after the fight, standing with her back against the wall, studiously ignoring the scorched, still-smoking corpses of her opponents. Her thoughts were looping endlessly. She needed to get out of the Drum. She needed to find the others. She needed to make choices, too, about what was to happen after leaving the Shinra building. Events that she’d long known were coming were now nigh, and while the paths open for her to take were limited in number, they were still there. After explaining some of her past to Cloud and the others, she’d entreated them to help her in preventing what was inevitable, fueled as it was by the obvious ambitions of Shinra and the more ambiguous aspirations of Sephiroth. In doing so, she’d made one of those uncertain choices and after uttering her plea, had waited almost fearfully to see if the Whispers would protest. They hadn’t.

“My dear,” came a voice from down the dim corridor. Aerith’s head snapped around to see the man in charge of Shinra’s Science Research Division. Hojo was approaching her slowly, a noticeable hitch in his stride, one hand pressed against his abdomen where blood had turned his charcoal shirt black. More blood decorated his lab coat in a spray of small splotches. She hoped it was his. She didn’t bother saying anything to him, though she did push herself away from the wall. Of all the things now roaming the Drum, Hojo was the least worrisome. The power he’d had over her for years had only come about through Shinra’s collective might—security officers and Turks, namely. Hojo on his own was just a man.

“I’m glad to see you unscathed,” the professor said, coming to a halt a few feet away. His breathing was loud and uneven, catching with every inhale. He pulled his hand away from his abdomen, glanced down at it, and grimaced. His eyes returned to Aerith, encompassing her with that laser-like, invasive scrutiny she had come so much to abhor. “Relatively unscathed,” he amended, undoubtedly taking in the scratches that adorned one of her arms and the bruises forming on the other.

“You’re not,” she said pointedly.

He huffed a laugh at that and immediately winced, fingers spasming against his stomach. “Unfortunately true. Today has been one of surprises. Did you know Sephiroth has returned? Palmer saw him first. I wasn’t quite sure I believed him. I do now. He’s come for Jenova and I made the foolish decision to try and deter him from that course. The result…” he gestured with his other hand to his wound. “I should be dead. I’m uncertain why I’m not. I’m grateful not to be, of course.”

He seemed not at all disturbed by the story he’d just told. If anything he seemed amused, which didn’t surprise her much. Hojo’s moods seemed regulated to clinical curiosity, cold condescension, and a perpetual air of disdainful amusement at anything that was unrelated to his research. She watched as he shifted his weight and wondered if she’d have to fight him off as well. A small part of her was eager for the opportunity, but the rest of her was tired of confrontation, a bone-deep weariness that she knew was only going to get worse from here as every step she took would take her farther from the relatively safe life she’d known.

“Sephiroth,” Hojo continued, as though oblivious to her glare, to the fact that he was bleeding, to the fact that the deadly zoo exhibit that was the Drum was no longer on lockdown. “He’s likely still here, you know. We took more precautions with Jenova than with the rest. He’ll find freeing her a bit more difficult than I suspect he anticipated… if it is in fact him at all.”

As calculated, his last words snagged her attention. Sensing this, he took a half-step closer. She raised her staff just a little, a movement that did not go unnoticed. He made no further efforts at advancing. He had his unwillingly captive audience now.

“How could it not be him?” she asked, because he expected her to, because she wanted to know. Even as she voiced it something niggled at her, a fleeting glimpse of something she used to know—should know? Would know? She shook her head, disconcerted and confused. As quickly as it had come the strange sensation in her mind vanished.

Hojo was smiling at her question. His smile had always bothered her, as had the rest of him—he was the only living being to ever make her skin crawl. Though she’d been quite young, she could still recall the way he’d looked at her mother, his gaze intensely and deeply covetous. It wasn’t personal interest, at least not entirely—it was cool, dispassionate fascination. He looked at Aerith in an identical way, seeking to peer past her barriers of flesh and bone to glimpse the essence of what she was beneath, entirely confident that he would uncover that secret in time. The unease he incited with his gaze was worsened by the things he would say, speaking of her elegance and grace, things he believed were inherent to her Cetra ancestry. No interaction with Hojo left her feeling anything other than sullied.

“It could be him,” Hojo responded, shrugging. “There’s not enough evidence for me to be certain either way.”

“Then why did you—”

“You should know by now how imperative it is to duplicate successful scientific endeavors,” he chided her. “Of course it’s not always possible. Take your mother, for example—you’re only half of what she was. Unfortunate, but you have still proved to be quite informative… though not overly helpful.”

After so long spent under his scrutiny and subject to his interrogations, masking her reactions had become something she did almost unconsciously. The only outward sign that his insults had hit home was the upward tilt of her chin as she stared through him. Depriving him satisfaction was one of life’s smaller, petty pleasures she indulged in.

“You’re still one of a kind, my dear, and so too is Sephiroth. A pity I was unable to acquaint the two of you with each other. The possibilities of such a union…”

He did provoke a reaction that time; she felt herself flush with fury as she parsed just what he was intimating. His smile deepened. “You should learn to look beyond yourself, Aerith, to what could be accomplished if only you were willing to see and accept it.”

“You’re loathsome,” she told him with feeling.

“I’m brilliant,” he corrected her.

“No,” joined another voice, “she’s right. You’re loathsome. And an asshole.”

 _Cloud._ Her heart leapt a little upon hearing him. He stood in a doorway slightly behind Hojo, sword in hand. Like her, he bore the signs of the tribulations the Drum presented, scuff marks and bruises and the occasional splotch of blood that she was willing to bet wasn’t his. Hojo half-turned upon hearing him.

“Ah,” said the professor. _“You.”_

“Me,” Cloud affirmed with a nod, sidestepping past, blade held at the ready.

“Come to save the lady fair?”

“She doesn’t need saving,” was Cloud’s reply, earning him a quick and grateful smile from Aerith. “She can handle herself.”

“Yes, I suppose. She’s certainly… _hardier_ … than her mother.” He heaved a disappointed sigh. “It’s to her detriment.”

Aerith’s smile curdled. Cloud, having reached her side, gave her a quick once-over. “You okay?”

“She’s fine,” Hojo remarked. He was surveying them both through thinned eyes, an expression that made Aerith distinctly uneasy. “Tell me, is there a special fondness between the two of you? Ancient and SOLDIER?”

“Ex-SOLDIER.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s what you think.” Hojo waved one hand dismissively. “Regardless, if so, the potential for what you could create together—”

“Shut up.” Cloud advanced a step.

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss what I have to say!”

Whatever reply Cloud may have given was halted by a loud, rolling growl spilling out of the room he’d appeared from. Hojo whipped around, backing away. Aerith tightened her grip on her staff.

“Let’s go,” Cloud said, indicating the length of the corridor behind him with a jerk of his head. Aerith turned to follow, catching sight of something dog-like creeping out of the open door as she did so. She felt nothing but cold satisfaction knowing they were leaving Hojo to deal with one of his creations on his own. She ran after Cloud, who determined their path by checking all the doors lining the corridor until finding one that slid open. He ducked inside, inspected the interior, and beckoned her through. It was another of the laboratories, divided into different bays by cubicle curtains. Sophisticated equipment was mounted to the walls, some of it looking decidedly unpleasant. She couldn’t help but gaze at it all as she passed through the room, knowing that she was fortunate indeed to have been a specimen of Hojo’s and not have ended up in one of these rooms. Cloud was already at the exit, waiting for her, and she hastened to join him. He remained where he was, straddling the threshold, looking at her carefully.

“Did they ever…?” He gestured to the equipment in the room behind them.

“No,” she said quickly, and seeing he was unconvinced, shook her head. “No. It was never that. It was just… a lot of scans. A lot of observation. A lot of questions.”

“A lot of kidnapping,” he said.

“Sometimes,” she agreed. “But not always. And they always let me go home.” As she mentioned home, a concern she’d shunted off to the side came barreling back and she stepped closer to him. “My mom? Marlene?”

“Safe.”

“Tseng kept his word, then.”

“He the one that took you?”

“Yes. He’s not all bad,” she said, and at his skeptical look insisted, “He’s not. None of the Turks are.”

“If you say so.”

She followed him through the door and into another laboratory. “What happened to the others?” she asked as he paused to toe the corpse of something that appeared to be a hybrid between a vine and a machine.

“We were separated. Thought it was Hojo’s doing, but…”

“It’s Sephiroth, I think.”

His head snapped up and the look he fixed her with was so intense she nearly backed a step. “You saw him?”

“No, but Hojo… he said Sephiroth had come to free Jenova.”

“That’s not possible,” Cloud muttered, rubbing at his temple with one hand.

“Hojo did say it may not actually be Sephiroth,” she offered.

“That makes even less sense!” His frustration wasn’t meant for her, but she stepped away anyway to give him space. She made her way to the opposite door of the laboratory, hoping beyond hope that it would open to magically reveal a way outside the Shinra building. It didn’t. It did, however, reveal the large, cavernous expanse of the Drum’s central chamber.

“Right back at the start,” she sighed. Which wasn’t entirely truthful. They were on the upper level, though once again the bridge to the central control system had been retracted. Movement from overhead caught her eye and she craned her head back to see dark shapes wheeling in the air above. More monsters. They’d have to be dealt with in order to move forward. Cloud moved up beside her, tilting his head back to observe the problem.

“You okay to do this?” he asked.

Truthfully, she was exhausted. Muscles she hadn’t even known she’d had were protesting every movement she made. Combat as she’d known it had been quickly conducted and tidily concluded. Every battle here in the Drum was prolonged against enemies that possessed greater power and intelligence than anything that roamed the slums. To say she’d been unprepared would be woefully understating it, but she was still here, still alive, and still capable of doing what needed to be done.

Her hesitation had not gone unnoticed. Cloud was observing her, both appraising and concerned. “I’m fine,” she reassured him with a small smile. “Let’s do this.”

**.x.**

The winged creatures were by far the most frustrating opponent she’d ever faced. They were swift, darting about almost like hummingbirds, delivering stings with their needle-like beaks and scratching any exposed skin with their claws. They were also prolific and it seemed for every two they downed, another four would appear. Brute force was not the prevailing tactic here and instead Cloud and Aerith stood shoulder to shoulder, backs to the wall, and utilized their materia in coordinated attacks in order to thin the herd. It was effective though time-consuming and by the time the last of the winged creatures had fallen they were both sweaty and marked with bites and thin scratches. Aerith, wearily swiping her damp hair away from her brow, began to sink to the ground in order to rest for a minute, but Cloud touched her on the shoulder and shook his head.

“Not here,” he said, instead beckoning her to follow. He led her across the catwalk to a spot where it suddenly ended. There were a row of cylindrical pods thrust out from the wall here. All of them were empty, but they would service well enough as stepping stones. Aerith assumed that was what Cloud intended but instead he pointed downward, just below the pods, where a singular platform was anchored to the wall several feet down, likely for maintenance usage. Cloud carefully stepped to the edge and jumped, landing gracefully. Aerith looked down at him. She had yet to master the art of falling the way he had.

He was frowning up at her, much the way he had the day they’d traversed the rooftops together. That memory, which had unexpectedly become one of her most cherished, pulled at the corners of her mouth but she suppressed the smile. “I’m coming,” she told him, but hesitated. There wasn't a lot of room for error—if she landed wrong or stumbled she could tumble right off the ledge…

“Come on,” he urged with far less impatience than she’d anticipated. “I’ll catch you.”

That made her want to do it even less. It was already hard enough to pretend his proximity didn’t have an effect on her. Still…

“All right,” she sighed, holding her staff in one hand. She eyed the distance, took two deep breaths, and jumped with as much grace as her tired self could muster. He didn’t need to catch her as she managed to land without too much fuss, though she did totter alarmingly to the side in an attempt to catch her balance. He steadied her with one hand on her upper arm, pulling her back, and once level again she didn’t bother to muffle her sigh of relief.

“You good?” he queried.

“Yeah.”

He nodded, turning and moving to the middle of the platform. He removed his sword from his back and set it down flat next to him before sitting with his back to the wall. “Come on. Let’s rest a while.”

“Are you doing this for my benefit?” she asked as she sat down beside him.

“ _Our_ benefit. I’m tired, too.”

He didn’t look tired. He looked… well, like Cloud. He caught her studying him and she jerked her gaze away, focusing instead on the sundry of bites on her arms. They’d risen into angry looking welts and while they’d stung something awful initially, they were starting to itch like mad now. She laid her staff across her knees and drew upon the healing materia embedded within while she ran her hands slowly over her arms. The swelling subsided, the itch fading. She held out her hand wordlessly in Cloud’s direction and he nodded, holding out first one arm and then the other as she gave him the same treatment. When she’d finished she propped the staff firmly against the wall and leaned her head back. Without any immediate threat she was able to focus on her discomfort, which was at the moment greater than she’d ever known. She had a ways to go yet before she could add “seasoned adventurer” to her resume. Still, she wasn’t dead, was no longer imprisoned in Hojo’s glass case, and Cloud was by her side. Things were looking up.

Thinking of Cloud made her instantly aware of how near he was. _Now is not the time,_ she sternly told the parts of herself responsible for the nervous fluttering sensation currently taking place in her stomach, but those parts resolutely ignored her and instead ramped up their levels of activity as she realized Cloud was looking at her. His expression was one of faint confusion and something else, something she couldn’t quite define. She knew what he was thinking, because suddenly it was all she could think of too.

“The dream,” he said finally, words she’d known were coming but had fervently hoped were not. His blue gaze was not something she could avoid, though she tried by letting her eyes skim across the vast expanse of the Drum before they were inevitably drawn back to his.

 _What dream?_ she wanted to ask, feigning ignorance and pretending she hadn’t shared it with him, that they hadn’t said what they’d said to each other. The words were there, poised to fall from her mouth but they tasted sour, each one a lie. Expelling them would break her a little. More than a little. She lifted her chin in weary defiance of what she _should_ do, and asked, “What about it?”

He exhaled, a breath he’d been holding in case she denied it, in case he’d imagined it. His relief worried her—she shouldn’t do this. She shouldn’t push _against_ the ordained any more than she already had.

“It was neat,” she rushed to say, striving for playful flippancy and failing; even she could hear how artificial she sounded. She pressed on regardless, “I’ve never experienced that before. Another first for me! I wonder if it happens with other people?”

“That’s not—” he started, and then faltered. Shaking his head, he narrowed his eyes and leaned toward her. “That’s not what I meant.”

She’d known that, of course, and her eyes darted away from his, an evasive reflex meant to buy time to formulate a response that wouldn’t take this any further, no matter how much she may want it. And she did. She did, and that’s why it was so hard to find the right words, the right phrasing, the right inflection—

“Aerith.”

Her eyes snapped back to his and she marvelled then at how unwavering they were. Cloud had proved susceptible to bouts of hesitant awkwardness just like any other person, but when his attention was focused it was inescapable. She squirmed inwardly, swallowed, and offered up yet another weak attempt to buy time. “What did you mean?”

His brows descended further. He wasn’t buying her act. She said a little desperately, “It was just a dream.”

He frowned, drew back a bit. It hurt her to see him withdraw. Driven by that hurt, by other emotions so new and intoxicating to her, she reached for him unthinking, her hand cupping his cheek just as it had in the dream. “Cloud,” she whispered, willing him to understand, to forgive, to forget. For a moment they were both utterly still, suspended in this forbidden current that linked them to each other until realization of what she was doing roared through her. She snatched her hand away but he was faster, fingers clamping around her wrist.

“No disappearing this time,” he said softly.

That elicited a laugh from her, not her usual brand of blithe gaiety but instead an uneven, edged sound. She was perilously close to becoming inextricably ensnared by her own actions, something that couldn’t happen, something that shouldn’t happen—

But it _was_ happening.

Cloud spoke, his voice low, his fingers still gripping her arm above her bracelets. His hold wasn’t painful, only firm, and she knew that if she tried to pull free she’d be unable to. “What you said, that night…”

“I don’t remember,” she lied, and was instantly ashamed by it.

“You do,” he said evenly. “I know you do. What you said—”

— _you can’t fall in love with me—_

“—You can’t decide that for me, Aerith.”

She stared at him, stunned and dismayed, though a significant part of her was flooded with something dangerously akin to happiness. “You don’t understand.”

“Then help me.”

She shook her head a little wildly, ducking her head. Panic made her speak in short bursts. “It’s not—it’s better if I don’t. It’s better if we forget, both of us. What I said then… I was wrong. It was wrong. It can’t be.” She paused, eyes fixed on the length of his fingers where they curved around her arm because it was easier than looking at him as she uttered her next words. “You can’t care for me.”

She’d deliberately skated around _that_ word, hoping it would emphasize her point. His grip tightened just a little, a prompt for her to lift her head. She did so slowly, under siege from so many emotions she could hardly locate a coherent thought.

He asked, “What if I already do?”

She shot to her feet, the movement so unexpected that he was startled into letting go. She whirled, seizing her staff from where it rested against the wall and walking along the platform, fully intending to make her way back up to the central catwalk for no other reason than to stop this conversation from happening. Cloud reacted swiftly, a SOLDIER’s boon, knifing in front of her before she’d reached the end and folding his arms across his chest. Her small sigh of defeat was audible.

“You used to talk too much,” he told her in a tone that might have been bluntly teasing if not for its severity, “about anything and everything. Now I can’t get a straight answer out of you. Why?”

She kept her mouth shut, once more riding the impulse to be uncharacteristically obstinate.

“Aerith.” He stepped forward. She held her ground. They were nearly the same height, which made it incredibly difficult for her to do anything but stare directly into his eyes, to take note of how the mako made them so lucent. They were beautiful. _He_ was beautiful. But he was not for her.

She repeated her earlier words dully, “You can’t care for me.”

He posed his next question with a certain amount of dubiousness. “Why? Would it be the worst thing if I did?”

“It would be the worst thing for _you,”_ she answered.

Doubt etched itself into the lines of his face. He didn’t understand. He thought she was being dramatic. She wished it was only that. The truth she couldn’t give him or admit to herself was that the depths of what she felt for him were already too much, too damaging. She’d only known him for days and already he had an unwitting, relentless hold on her heart. _The florist and the SOLDIER,_ she thought to herself, a reality she’d already known and cherished once before in her life. Accompanying that memory came a familiar hurt, the unwelcome pang of loss. Her eyes had opened wide, very wide, in a bid to keep the moisture that brimmed there at bay. Cloud’s expression softened and he reached out, intercepting a tear that had escaped with the backs of his knuckles. Such a caring and intimate gesture from him was, she suspected, unprecedented, yet another indicator that things between them had already gone too far.

If he’d said something in that moment—if he’d tried to persuade her, to hold her, to reassure her— she would have been undone. He didn’t, thankfully, instead simply holding out his hand for her to take. Torn, it was a long moment before she reached for it. Wordlessly he turned, towing her behind him as he made his way back across the platform to where they’d been seated. He sat, pulling her down with him, until they were both once again side by side. He laid her hand on his thigh, palm up, and laced his fingers with hers. Her heart seized before launching into overdrive and her little gasp was an instinctive reaction, so too the involuntary twitch of her fingers. He slanted her a nearly unreadable glance but there was definitely something there, a faint hint of uncertainty and satisfaction that only she would ever see.

“Rest,” he ordered.

Well, that was currently going to be impossible given the rate of her pulse. Still, she slowly obeyed, leaning her head back and trying to close her eyes. They opened immediately, buoyed by this forbidden euphoria.

“Aerith.” His thumb rubbed a path across the back of her hand, a tentative effort to soothe. She did close her eyes then, overwhelmed by the enormity of what she was feeling. She didn’t want him to know. As quietly perceptive as he was, she suspected he already did.

“I’ll keep watch,” he said. She nodded wordlessly, eyes still closed, and let herself be lost in the simple, comforting sensation of her hand in his.

**.x.**


	2. Divarication begins

Cloud was at a loss.

His eyes kept dropping to his lap, where Aerith’s hand lay with her fingers intertwined with his. His heart was thudding at a steady yet accelerated pace not at all related to the combat that had ended some time ago. He had been prepared for the inevitable encounters with the denizens of this place. He’d been prepared to fight his way through this fucking building, because there could be no other way. He had not been prepared for  _this,_ though, this thing that Aerith kindled to life inside him, this unexpected jumble of feelings that eroded his mental footing and left him feeling like he was perpetually in freefall. A part of him hated it. The rest of him craved it, a need he found terrifying because of all the unknowns it carried within it. Affection was not an arena he had expertise in, romance even less so. It wasn’t like he could pretend he felt nothing, at least not anymore, because he was sitting here holding her hand while next to him she slept. 

He looked over at her, a sidelong glance because if she was awake… well, she’d catch him looking, as she already had numerous times now. Her green eyes had the tendency to throw him off balance the way nothing else could, sometimes glinting with mirth, sometimes full of candid interest, sometimes oddly shuttered. Earlier when they’d brimmed with tears, he’d been unable to curb his reaction to reach for her, to catch an errant tear, to try and comfort her even though he was abysmally inept at it. And once he’d started, he couldn’t stop—didn’t  _want_ to stop. That’s how he’d ended up here, sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, holding her hand, mired in both uncertainty and a sense of contentment he hadn’t known… well, ever. Had he? And where did he go from here? He cared for her. He wasn’t sure how it happened, or why, or what to do with it, but it was what it was. He cared for her and was unwilling now to lose what he felt even if it left him exposed and vulnerable. Strange that he was so certain of this when he was uncertain of so many things, of the memories and thoughts that so often seemed to be just beyond his reach or that altered themselves at odd moments, like when she’d spoken of the first man she’d loved. He didn’t like thinking about the nameless whoever-he’d-been, so instead he took a deep breath and leaned his head back against the wall and willed his heart to slow, his whirling thoughts to calm, and just let himself  _be_ here with her. 

It worked. Kind of. At his side she was motionless, lost in the heavy kind of sleep only true exhaustion brings. She had impressed him before with her resolve and had done so again here in the Drum, though he was concerned about her as well. Ever since he and the others had freed her she’d seemed subdued, not a strange thing considering the circumstances. But Cloud was somehow sure that it was more than that. What smiles she had manifested had seemed strained, ghosts of their usual selves, and when he’d confronted her about the dream he was almost positive he’d glimpsed panic in her eyes before she looked away, before she’d stood and tried to leave. Tension had taken up residence within her, visible in the faint furrows between her brows, the tight set of her shoulders, the narrowed line of her mouth. It was fear, he guessed. Fear and sorrow, and the latter bit was what prompted him to look closely at her now to try and understand what it was she had been so unwilling to say. All that came to his mind as he viewed her in repose was that he couldn’t lose her. He  _wouldn’t_ lose her, and as she stirred he averted his gaze and wondered how someone he’d known for such a short time had come to mean so very much. 

An hour passed, maybe more, before he woke her. He did so carefully, extricating his fingers from hers and laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her head lolled to the side, eyes opening. She blinked once and focused on him and it was all he could do not to look away, a mechanical, awkward reflex born from years of keeping himself emotionally apart from others. Still riding the vestiges of slumber, her mouth pulled into a drowsy smile to see him and he felt her hold on his heart tighten. He did look away then, reaching for his sword and standing, holding out his hand to her once he was on his feet.

“Was I out for long?” she asked, accepting his offer. He pulled her up, shaking his head.

“Nope.”

“Anything happen?”

“Nope.”

“Of course not… not with you on watch,” she said, her voice lilting in that playful, teasing way it so often did. It gladdened him to hear it, this small return to normalcy, and he turned before she could see the way the corner of his mouth tugged upward in response. He made his way to the edge of the platform, leaping up to the central level easily before dropping to one knee and turning to again extend his hand down to her. She was looking up at him, expression now somber, and he pulled his hand back slightly.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said after a moment, and as he frowned she insisted with a note of forced lightheartedness, “It’s nothing.”

But it was  _something_ and they both knew it. He kept silent, lips compressing into a thin line. Whatever she was hiding pained her and he hated that, hated that she was too afraid or too unsure to share it—not that he had any real footing to stand on in that regard, tight-lipped about his own thoughts and feelings as he was. After a moment he extended his hand to her again and she took it. He pulled her up quickly, giving her time to get her bearings and sort herself out while he took a long look around. The Drum was ominously silent, a stillness that for some reason bothered him. 

Aerith’s thoughts had traveled a similar path. “It’s too quiet.”

Cloud slowly turned on the spot, eyes scanning their surroundings top to bottom. His reply was low and drawn-out. “Yeah.” A moment later it hit him, and he expelled an uneasy breath. “The machinery’s off.”

Aerith cocked her head, listening, taking in the lack of background noise that had persisted this entire time. There was no longer the hum of the hundreds of wires carrying power to every pod in the Drum or the steady, rhythmic, whisper-like pulse that had come from the hoses attached to the huge central containment pod — Jenova’s cell, he reminded himself. The lights were still on, save those damaged by the quakes and the fighting, but everything else in the Drum had shut down. There could be any number of reasons for this, he knew, but was inexplicably certain that it meant something bad had happened or was about to happen—with his luck, likely both.

At his side, Aerith stirred, both her hands slowly clenching around her staff. A small movement, but one that spoke volumes. That tight, strained expression was back on her face and unthinking he reached for her. He checked the movement just as she turned, her glance a questioning one.

“We’re getting out of here,” he told her with a firmness he didn’t quite feel. “We’re going to find the others and then we’re getting out.”

“Okay,” was her soft reply.

“I mean it.”

His emphasis earned him the flicker of a smile and he let it wash over him, clutching that image close as he turned and beckoned her to follow. “This way,” he said decisively, as though he were operating on certainty rather than blind guesswork. She followed, her footsteps as she ran after him light and rapid. They crossed yet another open expanse of catwalk toward a door with a lock indicator set into the wall above it. The indicator was dark, neither green nor red, and Cloud fully expected it to remain closed as he approached. It hissed open, however, revealed a dark corridor on the other side that both of them stared at with varying degrees of trepidation.

“We haven’t been in there yet,” Aerith observed.

“No,” he agreed. He felt at odds with himself as he stared into the beckoning blackness, an urge to stride into that corridor but at the same time, a strong inclination to back away, to turn and leave until the door was out of his line of sight. He struggled with both for a moment, eventually becoming aware that Aerith was watching him. “It may be a way out,” he said, quashing his unease and stepping forward. “Stay behind me. Light one of the materia on your staff so we can see.”

She did as directed, stepping into the corridor right on his heels, bringing to life one of her materia and holding her staff aloft so that the green glow illuminated their path ahead. Whatever malfunctions currently afflicting the Drum had not spared this area. All lights were dead and of the many doors they encountered on either side of the corridor, none would open. They continued on slowly, their steps cautious and measured. The passageway entered a wide turn and they slowed their pace even more through unspoken agreement. When it finally straightened out again, they came to a simultaneous halt. At the end, lit from above, was a door. They regarded it in silence for long moments, Aerith peering over Cloud’s shoulder.

“Better than nothing,” she offered eventually.

“Yeah,” he said, and began moving forward again.

The door opened upon approach. The interior, thankfully, was lit. It was another laboratory, Cloud noted as he crossed the threshold, but bigger than the others he’d crossed through. Lining one wall were four containment cells, much like the one Aerith had been imprisoned within except cube shaped rather than cylindrical. All were brightly lit and devoid of any living presence, but there was evidence of habitation in every single one, beds and toilets and sinks, desks and chairs and books. The rest of the lab was divided into research stations, though bordering the wall were curtained cubicles complete with that ominous looking equipment he’d seen before. He was grateful to see that the only ones in the room were themselves but then his thoughts came to a sudden and shuddering halt as his eyes skipped back to a space they’d just traversed while at the same time Aerith gasped—

Sephiroth.

He stood only a few feet away. He hadn’t been there moments ago—he’d simply appeared, shaping himself out of nothingness. Cloud took a step backward, struggling to reconcile the reality before him with the past he knew. Pain shot through his head, his vision flickering, and he clutched at his temple while the hand holding his sword dropped. He heard Aerith speaking, knew she was saying his name, but her words were somehow unfathomable. Other voices screamed for attention within his mind, all of them familiar but all of them strange, and the resulting cacophony was excruciating. Helpless against this internal onslaught, he dropped to one knee. And then, a voice cutting through the rest of the clamor, dulling them all to a hissing whisper—

“Cloud.”

The voice was commanding and sonorous, and helpless to do anything but obey the imperative within it Cloud lifted his head. Sephiroth was smiling, a faint and inimical curve of the mouth. “I admire your persistence, to have come this far.”

The agony that pierced Cloud’s skull was unrelenting, a haze that narrowed his field of view until only Sephiroth was visible, towering, indomitable,  _impossible._ It was all he could do to raise his head a fraction of a distance to look upon the man who should be dead but wasn’t, to try and fight his way free of the mire of tortured astonishment in order to regain control of himself. 

“It seems that destiny will not permit complete defiance,” Sephiroth remarked in a tone that would be conversational from any other person at any other time, “particularly where you are involved—the _two_ of you,” he amended, his eyes flicking to Aerith. “At first I thought it an inconvenience. Now, however…”

He took a step forward. Aerith swiftly inserted herself between the two men. Cloud experienced a flaring of fear for her, tasted it sharp and bitter in his mouth, was able to surge to his feet to grab her by the arm and pull her back. His rebelliousness caused a resurgence of pain and he gasped, white spots flaring across his vision. He swayed, felt Aerith’s arm go around him as she whispered his name.

“How touching,” Sephiroth observed. “Are you aware, Cloud, of the strength of the bond that ties you to each other? Much like that which binds you to me, it eclipses both time and fate. It has proven far more resilient than I anticipated. A problem… or, perhaps, a solution not sought.”

His words resounded through Cloud’s mind, their meaning veiled but their intent inarguably insidious. A part of him knew what they foretold through faint, darting glimpses of events that would change  _everything._ Fury and sorrow swept over him in a tidal wash, emotions born from a source he was not yet meant to fathom. They strengthened him momentarily, allowed him to regain some measure of control over himself. He took a deep, shaking breath and lifted his sword, bringing it before him and gripping it in both hands. He wavered on a knife’s edge, his autonomy threatened on one side by these unexpected, uncontrollable feelings and on the other by whatever malady that kept overcoming him while in Sephiroth’s presence.

“So,” Sephiroth said, “you’ve learned to cut your strings.”

Emotion won out. Cloud’s mouth twisted into a snarl, and he leapt.

**.x.**

Cloud hurled himself forward, sword raised, his voice rising in an unintelligible shout. Startled, Aerith stumbled back, gripping her staff in both hands in preparation to come to his aid but it was over before it began. Sephiroth stepped into Cloud’s rush, deftly twisting aside to evade the blade and then swinging back around to deliver a powerful backhand blow that sent Cloud hurtling across the room and through the glass of one of the containment cells. The cell shattered explosively and in the aftermath there was only the sound of Aerith’s accelerated breathing and a heartbeat later, Sephiroth’s voice.

“Is it your influence that inures him?”

Aerith said nothing. She knew of him, of course—few were the residents of Midgar who had no knowledge of the former figurehead of Shinra’s military. She knew him apart from that too, a knowledge that was inherited, consisting of warning whispers and dreams of dread. Sephiroth was her enemy and had been since before he was a thinking, breathing being. Like her, he was privy to knowledge that no others had and like her, he was not entirely human. Their similarities ended there. As he took one slow step in her direction she made a pointed effort to calm her breathing, squaring her shoulders and meeting his gaze head on. He came to a halt within touching distance. He was so tall she had to crane her head back to look at him—the top of her head barely met the line of his shoulders. He wielded his stature as effortlessly as he wielded his blade, looking down at her as a towering, malevolent god from atop his mountain. This close she could see clearly his eyes, mako-imbued green with slitted pupils, and what stared out of them was nothing familiar, nothing kind.

“When earlier I found Hojo, he spoke of you, the half-Cetra girl he has spent so long studying in hopes of discovering the Promised Land. He is of course a fool. They all are. Hojo’s ambitions have always run deep. I am an example of that.” He paused, eyes narrowing just a fraction as he studied her. “In mentioning you he revealed some of his other ambitions, perhaps in hopes that I would be amenable. Do you know of what I speak?”

She knew, but wasn’t about to say it aloud. He read it anyway in the way her mouth tightened. “A laughable idea, that—our offspring being transcendent simply by merit of its lineage. You and I both know there is more to it than that, don’t we? You are only half of what your mother was, after all, and I am…”

“An abomination,” Aerith said, her voice far steadier than she felt.

He smiled, tilting his head slightly. Strands of his silver hair fell forward over his shoulders. “Am I? Or am I simply the fulfillment of everything the Planet put into motion eons past?”

She shook her head, a conviction that wasn’t fully hers emboldening her. “You know you’re not.”

“What I know is beyond your current level of comprehension.”

“You are _wrong!”_

“I am _needed.”_ He was quite abruptly right in front of her, his movement merely a flicker of action. He arrested her staff as she swung at him, one hand fastening around it to wrench it from her with an ease that was terrifying. He tossed it to the side where it landed with a rolling clang. She backed away, bumping into a table and then darting around it so that it stood as a barrier, flimsy and insufficient, between them. She glanced over her shoulder to the broken cell where the crumpled form of Cloud lay. 

The momentary diversion of her attention did not go unnoticed. “Is your concern for him genuine?”

It was such an unexpected question that her reaction was instinctive, her head snapping around. She glared at him. “Of course it is!”

He leaned over, laying both hands flat on the table, a movement that put his face directly before hers. She fought down the urge to jump back; despite her warranted fear, she’d had enough of being bullied and controlled by the men currently or previously under the employ of Shinra. Her newfound resolve earned her an amused, appraising look.

“How do you know it’s genuine? How certain are you that what you feel is not merely a directive instilled within you?”

He was giving voice to things she had tried very hard not to think about in recent years, had tried even harder to ignore in the past few days. That he was so easily capable of interpreting her unspoken fears was disconcerting to the extreme. “I am my  _own_ person,” she told him, hating the desperate, uncertain edge riding her words.

“Perhaps you are,” he acknowledged after a moment. “Perhaps you have worked your way free of destiny’s doctrines, as I have. The possibility presents a solution.”

_The solution not sought,_ he’d said to Cloud earlier. She stared at him, the suspicion niggling at her mind a dire one. “What are you—”

Her voice died immediately as he lifted a hand and captured her chin, his fingers and thumbs pressing hard. Even through that minor touch she could  _feel_ the power that resided within him, a power that should never have been his, a power that belonged to something that should have stayed dead and buried. In the depths of those eyes she saw nothing human, only a calm enmity directed toward every living thing in this world. 

“You and I are fated. I was to be your death. You were to be my defeat. Those outcomes are certainties no longer.”

Aerith could do nothing but breathe, her hands fisted at her sides as he turned her face slightly one way and then another, studying her with a cool and insulting detachment. “What awaits us now,” he continued, “is not entirely unknown to me. You may not like the new course fate carries you toward, Cetra.”

“Aerith,” she ground out.

“Aerith,” he corrected with an insolent half-smile. He let her go. “Come. Time is short and there is much yet I must do.”

She stared at him in disbelief, which burgeoned into alarm as he turned and made his way toward the cell in which Cloud lay. She pushed herself away from the table, darting in front of him with the full and foolish intent to block his path. He batted her aside easily and she stumbled sideways, regrouping and lunging after him as he stepped up into the cell, broken glass grinding beneath his boots. “Don’t—” she started to say as he reached Cloud and leaned down, biting off the rest of her words as hefted the unconscious man and slung him over his shoulder. He retrieved Cloud’s weapon with the other hand before turning to face her, arching a brow.

“You would rather I leave him to suffer the ungentle mercies of Hojo’s menagerie?”

He didn’t wait for her to reply, moving past her with his burdens and stepping down from the cell. She followed close behind, dread and anxiety swelling a knot in her throat. He proceeded through the lab and to keep up with his long strides she had to run, halting only to retrieve her staff. “Where are you taking him?” she demanded then, catching at his arm. He came to a halt, half-turning, and swept the arm holding Cloud’s sword out to the side.

“I am removing him—and you—from the Drum. You will not want to be around for what comes next.”

She suddenly became aware that she was still clutching his arm. She snatched her hand back, asking, “Why? What will you do?”

Another chilling smile was her only answer. He swept around and resumed walking. As he led the way out of the Drum, she realized that he must have already been here, given the evidence—the corpses of creatures much like those she and Cloud had encountered littered the halls, their blood staining the floor and walls. She wondered at his reason for clearing a path when he’d already made it clear his purpose for being here lay in the center of the Drum, a creature of nightmare being used to create lesser nightmares. His reasoning for what he did now remained a sinister unknown. Eventually she realized the corridors had taken on familiar twists and turns. She knew where they were and had a sinking suspicion that she knew their destination. She was proven correct minutes later as Sephiroth came to a halt before a door she knew very well—it was the door that led to her Shinra “residence.” That he knew precisely what lay beyond was evident by the look he gave her from over his shoulder. Protests, many of them, flooded her mouth but she was given no time to utter them. The door slid open. Sephiroth walked through. After taking a deep breath, she cautiously followed.

The lights came on the moment the threshold was crossed. Sephiroth crossed the room to deposit Cloud on the bed and lean the sword against the wall before turning, taking in everything with a sweeping glance. His gaze lingered on the wall adorned with her own artwork, swirls of colors and images that should have meant nothing to anybody but herself. They meant something to him, judging from the way his eyes moved speculatively from the wall to her face and back again. An urge, unbidden, rose within her, to query what he saw within those things she’d drawn years go, to know if his dreams had in any way echoed the ones that had led to those drawings. She quelled the impulse, knowing that whatever answers lurked behind that uncertainty were ones she was not prepared to hear. She moved toward the bed. Sephiroth continued studying her illustration, his voice following her.

“A _…_ quaint… depiction of what _was_ to be.”

She ignored him, instead setting her staff on the floor and perching on the side of the bed, leaning over Cloud. Strain had etched its way onto his countenance even as he lay senseless, his brow furrowed, his jaw clenched. Dried blood from a laceration in his hairline decorated one side of his face and a quick inspection revealed several more wounds of the same nature, none of them overly serious. She lifted a hand to touch him but checked the movement, suddenly aware of Sephiroth’s regard. She turned but didn’t rise, simply looked at him where he stood, an impossibility given human form. He remained motionless and silent under her own scrutiny until, slowly and deliberately, he lowered his head. The illusion splintered. In that dissection of a moment she glimpsed what he truly was, a man in worn black robes, stoop-shouldered and bent, who lifted his head to gaze upon her with pale, clouded eyes. He was not Sephiroth, but he wore the same cold smile. She blinked and the illusion mended itself.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“We are all the parts of the same whole.” His eyes moved to Cloud. “Tend to him. Care for him. I will need him later, and you as well. I believe there is much the three of us will need to accomplish together.”

“If you think—”

“I don’t need to think. I know.” Giving the illustration on the wall one last dismissive glance, he turned and strode toward the door. He halted as it opened, speaking to her over his shoulder. “He will need some time to recover. The path from here to the upper floors is clear. I advise you take it when he’s well enough to leave.”

“What will you do?” she demanded, coming to her feet.

“Proceed with the liberation.” He stepped through the door and it hissed shut behind him. 

Aerith sagged back onto the bed, hunching forward and crossing her arms across her stomach. Everything Sephiroth had intimated rang true within her, had struck a primal, central note of certainty and it left her feeling profoundly shaken. After a while she raised her head to look at the door, wondering if it would be enough of a deterrent to keep she and Cloud separate from whatever hell Sephiroth was about to unleash. There was no way to lock it from the inside; this room was as much a cell as any other in this place. She rubbed tiredly at eyes that felt gritty from exhaustion before turning to look again at Cloud. It hurt her to see him like this, bloodied and in the grips of whatever inexplicable affliction Sephiroth caused. She touched gentle fingers to his brow, drew them away in a hesitant caress. She couldn’t do much for him other than heal his physical wounds and so she reached for her staff. Her skill with the healing materia mended cuts and bruises quickly and she drew back when finished, finding a small amount of satisfaction in knowing that at least she could do this for him.

Setting her staff against the wall, she got to her feet and crossed over to the ugly red couch on the other side of the room. She’d slept here often as a child, often after wearying herself out with tears because they’d taken her mother away. She shoved those particular recollections away and curled up on the cushions, pillowing her head on her arm. She stared at the door, wondering what transpired beyond it, wondering at Sephiroth’s game. The order of things had changed—she could feel it the same way she could feel a breeze on her skin, a faint but ominous sensation. He was still inarguably her enemy, but had made it plain that he intended she live, at least for now. At least until she could be of use to him—Cloud, too. Apprehension and doubt swirled within her until they weighed down her eyes and finally she slipped into sleep to find it mercifully devoid of dreams.

**.x.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing my third replay, taking my time to appreciate and absorb every nuance and word and action. The characterization in the remake blows me away. I only kind of liked Cloud in the OG. He was just okay. I was far more fascinated by Sephiroth and because of that, became a fan of AeriSeph in the years following. The way the relationship is being built between Aerith and Cloud in the remake hits me in all of my Feels. I can't get enough of it, which is why I'm writing this.
> 
> There are some things I've not touched on yet, like Seph's familial ties to Hojo, but I'll get around to that (maybe). After replaying a second time and giving it some thought, I'm all aboard the "alternate timeline" theory, so things will be heading in that direction from here on.
> 
> If you've stuck around this long, thank you so much for reading!


	3. Forbidden, unfamiliar territory

Cloud was lost in memories. Some weren’t his, but he didn’t know that yet. He might never know. From behind another’s eyes he watched different stages of life unfold, found himself reliving certain milestones that pained him as much as they pleased him. Here was a friendship that formed between mentor and student, the elder’s patience tempering the youth’s impertinence. Both were destined for death—Cloud knew that, somehow, felt a borrowed anguish settle over him like a shroud. A gift was given, laden with meaning and sentiment: a sword—

— _his sword?—_

—passed from one to the other before the end came. Other memories filtered through the blackness to him, recollections of yet another gift in the form of a pink ribbon, of a girl with dancing green eyes and curling dark hair and a laugh that buoyed spirits. Her visage prompted a dissonance in memories, a clash between then and now, between his and _his,_ and the resulting emotional upheaval expelled him roughly into the world of wakefulness. He opened his eyes and then closed them immediately as even the wan light of his surroundings seared his retinas.

“Cloud?”

Her voice was the same as the woman he’d remembered (dreamed of)? Even in his disoriented, dizzied state, it heartened him to hear it. His eyes opened with full disregard for caution considering what had just happened, blinking into focus a comely, concerned face staring down at him.

“Aerith?” he tried to ask, but his voice failed him.

“Heya,” she said softly, the terse line of her mouth creasing slightly until it became a worried smile.

He struggled to get into a upright position but stopped immediately, clutching at his head, his breath hitching in agony. What ailed him was far more than physical—every thought he had ricocheted around his brain, creating stentorian echoes. He felt hands on his shoulders, gently pushing him back down, and he didn’t resist. He didn’t open his eyes again, instead tried to gather himself, to achieve some semblance of focus, but it was too hard. It was too much. Sleep tugged at him and he was ready to fall back into it, but her gentle murmur brought him back.

“Aerith,” he said again, his voice little more than a croak. The movement of his throat to generate those words hurt. Breathing hurt. Her fingers stroked over his brow and down his cheek, first one side and then the other. His eyes cracked open, narrowed to shield him from the light but it had dimmed somehow—or maybe it was just that she drew all of his attention so that everything else was redundant.

“Rest,” she told him, whisper-soft, flattening her palm against his cheek. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Fears, subdued by pain and confusion, resurfaced abruptly. His eyes flared wide and he caught at her arm. “Sephiroth?”

Her expression cracked for only the merest fraction of a second but he saw it, recognized it, addled though he was; such was his attunement to her. “He’s gone,” she assured him, and when his grip tightened she lifted her other hand to his other cheek, framing his face. Her thumbs brushed small, soothing circles over his skin. “He’s gone,” she repeated.

He was caught in her eyes, or maybe she was caught in his. He sought the solace offered in her gaze and she studied him with a faint frown, the lines marring her brow ones of sorrow, perhaps contrition. That was a puzzle he lacked the mental fortitude to solve at the moment. All he knew was that he wanted to see her smile again. He lifted his other arm, feeling bruised and battered muscles as they lodged a protest at the action, and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, anchoring her hand where it was pressed against his cheek. He was operating solely on instinct and urge—comprehensive thought was off somewhere, licking its wounds after Sephiroth’s mental assault. Instinct and urge were what emboldened him to turn his head until his lips grazed the soft skin of her palm. She made a sound that was somewhere between his name and a gasp. He wanted to see her reaction, but that bit of movement had taxed what very little remained of his stamina and his fingers fell away from her, his eyes dragging closed.

Lucidity made a more official return the next time he woke. He knew who he was as he blinked up at a strange ceiling, knew his thoughts. His body ached and there was a dull throb in his temples, but he felt scores better than he had the first time. His breath hissed out as he recalled certain details from last time and a part of him hoped that he what he thought he’d done was just pure fabrication on his part. But a different part of him hoped—

He broke off that train of thought, instead focusing on taking stock of things as they were. An experimental shifting revealed that his body, aside from its hurts, was entirely functional. He propped himself up on his elbows. It took him a second to recognize his surroundings as the only light now was the soft green glow from the lock indicator above the door. Aerith’s room, he realized, easing himself into a sitting position with a wince. It took him a moment to find her in the dark, curled up on the couch opposite beneath a blanket. Her breathing was soft, steady, a sleeper’s rhythm. His first instinct was to wake her, to bombard her with questions— _How did we end up here? What happened with Sephiroth?—_ but he reined in the urge. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he was guessing they were safe in here, or at least relatively so. He slid over to the edge of the bed, placing his feet on the ground. His head swam a little with the movement; it seemed the hangover from Sephiroth’s presence still lingered. Filaments of memory were returning to him slowly, tentatively, as though wary of his reaction. He and Aerith had encountered Sephiroth in a lab. Sephiroth had spoken, veiled words that somehow still ignited a tempest of emotion within Cloud, emotion with origins he still didn’t understand. And then he’d lunged at Sephiroth, and…. well, given the sundry of aches he was currently experiencing, it wasn’t hard to guess the end result. His hands where they rested on his thighs curled into fists. Sephiroth was a very significant, very dire dilemma mired in the middle of other dilemmas, and all of them commanded his attention. Sephiroth was also an irrefutable impossibility—

Pain lanced through Cloud’s temples, almost as if in warning to stop probing at thoughts and memories better left dead and buried. He gasped at its intensity, fingers pressing against his brow in an futile attempt to ease the agony. As before, his vision darkened and then white spots burst across it bright enough to hurt before fading away. A clamor of voices flooded his mind, voices all repeating one thing, one word, their chorus deafening and yet somehow he could still hear the quick footsteps that darted across the floor toward him—

“Cloud?” Cool fingertips were on his chin, tilting his head upward. And just like that, seeing her calmed the chaos, sent it receding back to whatever nethermost reaches it came from. She’d switched the overhead light on and her concern for his wellbeing was starkly evident. He swallowed against a sudden, inexplicable knot that had risen his throat.

“What is it?” she asked him, her voice still husky from sleep.

“Headache,” he replied, his voice almost as raspy.

She moved as though to lay her hand against his cheek but withdrew abruptly, taking a step back and giving him a hesitant smile. “How do you feel otherwise?”

“Sore. What did Sephiroth do?”

“Threw you through a solid wall of polycarbonate thermoplastic sheeted between laminated glass,” she replied. At his blink, she elaborated with a humorless smile, “Hojo enjoys pointing out how advanced his prisons are to his prisoners. Those cells are designed to be impenetrable. You broke one with your head.”

“Explains the throbbing,” Cloud said. “And after? Where did _he_ go?”

She hesitated in answering, gaze dropping to the floor. “Hey,” he prompted, and then asked even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer, “How did we get here? How did _I_ get here if I was out cold?”

“Sephiroth,” she said on an uneven exhale. “He carried you here.”

Tension and unease, ever-present nowadays, tightened Cloud’s jaw until he could feel it in his teeth. “Why?”

She shook her head, stepping forward and taking a seat beside him on the bed. “I don’t know. He said that he was going to use the two of us, somehow. That the three of us had things to accomplish together.”

“Like hell we do. Did he hurt you?”

“No,” she said, and then again at his openly dubious expression, “No. All he did was speak.”

“About?”

“You. Me. Him.” She took a breath as though to say more but stopped. She was sitting stiffly, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. She tipped her head down, her hair falling forward to obscure her face and though he couldn’t read her expression, he could see the way her shoulders were stooped slightly, burdened by a weight she could not or would not share. He wanted to place a comforting hand on her arm and nearly did but subdued the urge. Adequately providing comfort was something far outside his wheelhouse and now was not the time for awkward gestures, even well-meaning ones.

“What did he say?” he probed carefully.

“Things that didn’t make sense, and some things that did.”

She was being deliberately evasive. It bothered him. He did reach out then, touching her lightly on the wrist. “Aerith. What did he say?

There was a long silence before she responded. “That he and I are fated. That he was supposed to kill me and that I was supposed to somehow defeat him. He said that everything had changed and that he would need us, need you and me, for something soon.”

“But that’s not everything, is it?”

She still wasn’t looking at him. “That’s all he said, Cloud.”

He arranged himself so that he was still seated on the bed but facing her. He lifted his hand from her arm and, after a flicker of hesitation, raised it to cup her chin, to turn her face toward his. Her eyes followed reluctantly, dragging from where they’d been focused on the floor to his own. She looked entirely unlike herself, sedate and grim.

“What else happened?” he asked. “What did he do?”

“Aside from hurting you?” She threw out the question to answer his own in yet another evasive action, but he wasn’t letting it pass this time. He frowned, opening his mouth, but she cut him off with a sigh that sounded like it came from the soles of her feet. “He knows things. Things he shouldn’t know, things that aren’t… I don’t know how to explain it.”

Cloud let his hand drop. His voice was quiet, patient. “Try.”

“You already know that I… feel things. I know things. I’ve always known them. It’s as much a part of me as, well, everything. Plants and animals and the world… they communicate with me, and through them I have witnessed parts of the past and…”

“And?”

She gave a small, weary shrug. “Parts of the future, I think. Or… a future that was supposed to be. Sometimes I have thoughts or—or memories, maybe, of words that I’ve said or were said to me, of things I saw or will see. And then as suddenly as they appear they’re gone and all I have left is confusion. Sephiroth seems… from what he said, it seems that maybe he experiences the same, except that he understands it better than I do. He has a clearer vision of what lies ahead, or at least he’s confident that he does, and he’s certain that what lies ahead involves the three of us together somehow. That’s what scares me… that he knows and I don’t, and that he intends to use me and you to achieve whatever it is he wants.”

“That’s not happening,” he told her firmly. “We’re not doing anything for him.”

Her smile was faint, sad. “Nothing is certain anymore.”

“ _This_ is. Aerith,” he persisted as she turned her head away, sliding off the bed and kneeling in front of her so that she had no choice but to look at him. “Whatever he wants, whatever he’s planning, you and I aren’t going to be a part of it. We’re not.” Her hand was on her knee and he laid his over it, squeezing. “I promise.”

Her expression shifted, a fluid procession of thoughts and emotions; some he recognized, others he didn’t. He couldn’t pretend to know how she felt, couldn’t even begin to fathom all the things she knew that he did not. So much was wrong right now, and so much more teetered right on the cusp of going wrong. Sephiroth should have been dead but was not, and every time Cloud was in his presence he came undone. There was a bigger and dire mystery there, but he didn’t have the insight he needed yet for it and so he shoved that concern off to the side to focus on the one before him. Aerith looked frightened now, lost and unsure, so unlike the sunny, sassy self she usually presented. It scared him. He remembered what she’d said hours before, right here in this room, about how she felt like she was losing pieces of herself and in recalling that he felt something akin to panic alight itself on his shoulders, raising the flesh on his arms. She mattered to him. She was vital to him. Lately, every day led to some new part of life unraveling itself with alarming frequency and while he had maintained his footing thus far, he had definitely been shaken by it all. But Aerith—there was something in her presence, her voice, in the lightness of her expression when she teased him that made him feel anchored against the chaotic winds that buffeted him. It was a part of why he loved her—

That particular realization stunned him. He rocked back on his heels, swallowing hard. He’d already admitted to caring for her, to her and to himself, but hadn’t been willing to examine it any further than that. Strife and war were not settings conducive to fostering love but here it was. Here _she_ was. She blinked down at him and he saw a question forming in those expressive eyes. _Aerith,_ he thought as unfamiliar emotions rode over him, overrode him, _you’re—_

Still on his knees, he leaned up and kissed her.

**.x.**

The world stood still for both of them.

Aerith, her hands abruptly on his arms out of shock, out of want, out of need, found that her thoughts were in dazed free fall. _This_ was unexpected… this was impermissible. He couldn’t love her. She couldn’t love him. But she did. She did, and that’s why her grip tightened and that’s why, after his lips met hers and her heart faltered for a few beats, she responded.

Cloud had never known exhilaration quite like this. What he felt during combat was heady and fickle, a rush that was always too soon over and left him empty in its wake. Now, with his mouth on hers, with her kissing him back, he was helpless beneath the strength of it all: passion and affection the most potent, but beneath them the sinuous tendrils of agitation and fear. There was still so much between them that was unknown, so much surrounding them with the very real potential to ruin everything and he very nearly pulled away, ready to apologize for being swept up in this tempest of his feelings. But then he felt her fingers, gently hesitant, fanning out over his face to keep him still as she kissed him with a sudden urgency that left him breathless. _Oh,_ was all he could think, and taking her new insistence as permission he touched her too, one of his hands sliding around her neck to her nape, pulling her head down closer to his.

It went on, this series of stolen moments; Time was gracious in its gift. It was a paltry amount in the bigger scheme but it was enough for them to learn things that words exchanged never could have revealed, to grant them the comprehension that what they felt for each other was in fact real, despite certain facets of reality attempting to convince them otherwise. It was enough time for Aerith to work her hand beneath one of the leather straps running down his chest, to splay it flat there, searching for the beating of his heart. He was sure she’d detect it—it was racing with such force that he could feel it throbbing in his jaw. Her touch kicked its pace up another few notches until he was certain she could not only feel it, but hear it. He broke the kiss finally, driven by his body’s irritating need for oxygen, pulling back slightly, saying her name on a ragged exhale.

She was still touching him, her palm still centered over his heart, the other cupping his cheek. Her name from his lips sounded raw, carried within it a particular kind of desperation that she felt too. Time snapped back into flow and they were back in the world as it was and she watched as his eyes widened as the ramifications of what he’d just done rolled over him, watched as he flushed and averted his eyes. What would happen next was easy to predict: he’d give her a terse apology, he’d stand, he’d move away, he’d turn so that she couldn’t see his face. He’d pretend that none of it had happened, because he was bewildered by all of it, because he didn’t know what to do. She didn’t either. She was just as bewildered, just as afraid, and she wanted to tell him, opened her mouth to do so but stopped because he hadn’t left. He remained where he was, on his knees before her, red-faced and looking up at her so earnestly that she felt tears flood her eyes. She blinked them back furiously. Now was _really not_ the time.

“That was… nice,” she told him when she was able to wrangle her voice into cooperation. The words were soft, husky. She patted him on the cheek before withdrawing her hand, an impertinent gesture accompanied by a shaky grin.

“Just nice?”

“Maybe a bit better than nice,” she admitted, wriggling her other hand beneath the leather strap in an effort to get it free. He caught at her wrist. She looked at him with one brow arched.

“This is how I feel,” he told her, pressing her palm tight against his chest where his heart still raced, willing her to understand all the nuances that he was unable to gracefully articulate. He was not and never had been a man of elegant speeches—bluntness was simply how he rolled. “When you said that I couldn’t—that I couldn’t fall in love with you—” and here his voice cracked, _goddamnit,_ “—it was already too late. It’s too late. You can’t change what I feel.” _So please, please don’t try._

“Cloud,” was all she said before dipping her head and pressing her lips against his once more in a fierce, fleeting kiss. When it was over she rested her forehead against his, her eyes closed. He closed his as well, lost himself in the sound of her breathing—accelerated still, he noted with no small amount of satisfaction. He felt, in a word, elated. He had his doubts, yes, numerous and varied, and of course the fear of all that lurked around the fringes for them both, awaiting a time to strike. But then was not now. Now it was just the two of them, alone and apart from the rest of the world and even though they couldn’t remain here, they didn’t have to go just yet.

“You love me,” she said long minutes later, opening her eyes and lifting her head. She was smiling.

“Maybe,” he said, affecting nonchalance while being very aware that he was still blushing. She pulled her hand away from his chest as he got to his feet.

“Well, maybe,” she said, stretching out the word as he turned to retrieve his sword from where it was propped against the wall, “I like you, too.”

He made a sound that could have been a laugh and probably was, even though she couldn’t see his expression. He slid his blade into its customary position on his back, speaking over his shoulder as he did so. “Probably a bad idea, to fall in love with your bodyguard.”

That made her laugh. “ _Like._ I _like_ my bodyguard.”

“Sure you do,” he said, turning and slanting her a glance that was equal parts amused and knowing. He knew exactly how she felt.

“Even worse idea for a bodyguard to fall in love with his client,” she teased as she pushed herself up from the bed. Her staff was where she left it, also propped up against the wall, and Cloud grabbed it and handed it to her.

“Yep,” he agreed, “especially one that doesn’t pay well.”

She made a sound of mock indignation which quickly became another laugh. Cloud began making his way toward the door but paused, turning back around to face her, his tone abruptly sober. “Are you okay to go? We can stay here a little longer if we need to.”

It was his way of apologizing that this wonderful little interlude had come to an end. It was okay. She understood, and was grateful that they’d been given this time. Grateful and a little astonished, because the Whispers had not appeared to separate them in their stolen moment of intimacy. The fact that the eldritch beings hadn’t come meant that both Sephiroth and her suspicions had been correct—the order of things had definitively changed. The unease accompanying those thoughts pricked at her and she could almost feel herself wilting away from it. Cloud saw it too, moved toward her until his hands were on her shoulders.

“We’ll figure it out,” he told her. “All of it.”

“I know,” she said, though she didn’t really. The obstacles that awaited them were many and significant and once they set foot outside this room, they would be placing themselves on a collision course toward all of them. The desire to stay here alone with Cloud was, she knew, a selfish one—the others were still somewhere in this building, probably looking for them both. Barret or Tifa or Red could be hurt or imprisoned. They had to leave, but—

Cloud’s arms were suddenly around her and he pulled her in close. She rested her head against his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him—leather, sweat, the faint metallic scent of his sword. “We don’t change,” he said in her ear. “We have each other now, no matter what. Right?”

“Right,” she dutifully echoed, smiling against the fabric of his shirt because she was his and he was hers and he was holding her in this moment. They lingered thus, until she reluctantly said, “We should go.”

“Yeah.” He slowly drew away from her, sliding his hands down her arms.

“Are you okay?” she suddenly thought to ask, concern drawing a V between her brows. “How’s your head?”

He touched two fingers to his temple experimentally and shrugged. “Better.”

“Shame,” she said breezily as she swept past him, headed toward the door, “I was all set to kiss it better.”

He caught her by the arm and swung her around so quickly that all she managed was a startled noise. “Oh yeah?” he challenged with just the faintest hint of a smile.

“Yeah,” she said, leaning forward and brushing her lips across his forehead.

He let her go, but not before taking her hand in his. He led her across the room and the door slid open upon his approach. He stopped before crossing the threshold, half-turning to take in the room with one sweeping glance before looking at her. “Is there anything here you want to take with you?”

She shook her head. “No. Nothing that matters.”

Her eyes fell on the painting she’d made years ago, before the world had played out its cruel and convoluted role for her to play. This would hopefully be the last time she’d ever gaze upon it and the indeterminate futures it had portrayed. She’d expected to feel something like loss knowing she’d never look upon it again—after all, it was something she’d created when her mother had still been alive and she had added to over the years as she’d grown. All she felt looking at it now was a strange sense of relief, relief that her time as a Shinra specimen had finally come to an end, relief that whatever pathways her child self had laid out with painstaking care upon that wall were no longer certainties. Once she left this room…

Cloud was looking at her, his hand still around hers. “You good?”

She nodded. “I am.”

She followed him through the door. The corridor without was dark, though off to their left a light flickered. She looked to the right, the way that led back to the main lab and found it devoid of anything but the corpses she’d passed on the way here. Cloud was staring straight ahead, where darkness and whatever else Shinra might have to throw at them awaited.

“Sephiroth said the way to the upper floors was clear,” she said.

Cloud felt his expression harden at the mention of the man who should be dead, but only nodded. He inhaled, wondering where they should even try to begin. The building was vast. To find the others was to look for a needle in a haystack, compounded by the fact that pretty much every living thing they would encounter would be hostile. It was a good bet that the others had found their way out and if they had, they would have gone up instead of down, or so he hoped. Aerith’s fingers squeezed his and he glanced down at their clasped hands, felt his sense of misgiving ease somewhat to know that she was here, that she was as much his as he was hers.

“Let’s go,” he said.

**.x.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks very much to all who have read this far!


End file.
